Wind Broke My Car, Toyota Warranty Guy Blows Smoke

All it took to turn Bobby’s Toyota Highlander into a mess was a gust of wind. The incident damaged the door’s functions, but Toyota has determined that the vehicle isn’t covered under warranty because the damage was caused by outside forces.

Bobby writes:

I own a 09 Toyota Highlander. One day I opened my car door (here in Brooklyn, not Chicago) a gust of wind blew the door open which damaged the door checks. It took Toyota dealer three visits to figure this out. Then they decided to call the local Toyota Field Technical Specialist to inspect the car. Well he decide that the door check were not made to withstand a gust of wind therefore it is not under warranty.

Toyota’s response to Bobby:

On behalf of Toyota, I sincerely apologize for the concern and dissatisfaction you experienced with the door of your 2009 Highlander.

I have thoroughly reviewed your concern. [redacted], Field Technical Specialist, responsible for Toyota inspected your vehicle and found that the door was excessively forced open due to a wind gust causing the door check to exceed its threshold. This caused the body of the door to become deformed as a result of the force.

The warranty on your vehicle will cover repairs and adjustments needed to correct defects in materials or workmanship of any part supplied by Toyota. The warranty will not cover damage or failures relating to outside forces.

The decision rendered by [redacted] was made on behalf of Toyota as the manufacturer. As [redacted] has been trained by Toyota and is an employee of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. and not the dealership, the decision rendered represents Toyota’s final position.

Toyota recommends contacting your insurance company to file a claim to see if they will assist with any needed repair costs.

I again apologize for this unfortunate situation.

Have you ever had a natural occurrence break your car and deny you warranty coverage?

The op may think a car should be reasonably durable, it should be able to stand forces that are likely to occur in the real world, though determining how strong or high quality a product has to be to meet reasonable customer expectations would turn out to be at least somewhat subjective.

Wait, this is clearly something that should be covered under his comprehensive policy (if he has one) through his auto insurer. There was no material defect in the door. That’s like complaining that Toyota won’t warranty-repair the bumper that fell off when you ran into a tree. Shesh.

I’ve had this happen to me before. Doors are heavy and not designed to be flung open with extreme forces. This is definitely an issue for the Insurance company to work out. Sure made me more careful about holding onto the door on windy days.

Let me put it this way – if there was an earthquake (a similar act of nature) and your car was damaged due to that, would that be a warranty issue? Tornado, hurricane, blizzard? I have to side with Toyota on this one, this isn’t a warranty matter. Now, if this were your insurance not paying up I’d be right there with you.

I don’t. Does Consumerist want to be associated with articles like this? Blaming car companies for not giving you free accident repair? Lying about what game designers say about the people who buy their games? Phil is trying to turn this site into the National Enquirer. “If it’s true or relevant, we’ll issue a correction.” And then the site wants to censor us when we object to it?

Hey, question, what if Bank of America or Amazon or, say, Expedia censored complaints and negative reviews? What would Consumerist have to say about that?

Oh don’t get me wrong, I agree with everything you wrote. I understand that they tend to disemvowel the snark, but trust me when I say that I think the snark (and your post) are spot on with regard to Phil.

I agree. I am to the point where I am one more Phil article away from not reading the consumerist any longer.
Come on- they have to read these posts. I could see if people complain about one post- but people are complaining about Phil’s posts every single day!

THis is also why I am not donating any money to Consumerist. I think the quality of the articles has gone down since they left Gawker. While I’m happy they weren’t there for the Gawker hacking, at least Gawker site’s have edit features for comments. It seems like the site has just been left the way it was with no improvements to features and less and less “real” articles.

I don’t see a way to disagree with what Toyota said. The door stops are designed to prevent a person, in the course of normal operation, from exceeding the limits of the doors. This shouldn’t be a warranty issue, but rather an insurance issue. If you had enough snow on your roof to cause it to partially crush, you wouldn’t except the warranty to cover that would you? Just because it is designed to be outside doesn’t mean it is designed to withstand all sorts of extreme weather phenomena. I’m guessing this was a pretty strong wind blast for it to damage the door, and would therefore fall into the category of “extreme weather”.

Why would this be under warranty? If the same gust of wind had blown a tree onto the car, Bobby would have called his insurance company, not his car dealer. Toyota was entirely correct to deny warranty coverage, and, in fact, quite polite about it.

Yup, agree with the others. Definitely insurance, not warranty. Had the submitter just opened the door normally and it broke, that would be warranty, but when you mention the wind blew it and it broke, that’s insurance. Think of it this way: if a large gust of straight-line winds blew your car into a ditch, would THAT be warranty? Of course not.

Um, when I’ve HAD a natural occurence do something to my car, I filed an insurance claim since, you know, THAT’S WHAT IT’S FOR! I don’t see Toyota doing anything wrong. Car insurance is for unforeseen things that happen to your car; accidents, hail damage, wind damage, etc. Warranties are for manufacturing defects or part failures on your vehicle.

OK, to play devil’s advocate (since no one else is), what if it wasn’t that high of a gust of wind? What if it was just normal wind? Or light rain? At what point is something an “extraordinary” outside force as opposed to Toyota just being shoddy about making their cars stand up to normal weather conditions?

Well, think about how difficult it would be to open a door resistent to flying open at certain wind gusts, say 50 mph. You have to balance the door not flying open at an average wind speed (which seems to be aroudn 15 mph in Brooklyn) to making the door able to be opened by most consumers. If it flew open and damaged the car in 15 mph winds then it’s a design flaw, if it takes much stronger winds, then it’s not. Not knowing enough about the forces on the door from the wind, I can’t say at what speed it would no longer be practical to have the door not fly open.

I’m sure Toyota and other manufacturers test their vehicle for various weather conditions. If the doors hinges are designed move under a certain load and the slam shut under a much larger load, there is no defect. If the move and damage something under a much lighter load than rated, then there is a defect. Heavy gusts of wind push way harder than a human pulling the door to shut it. I’m sure it was determined that the force applied to cause the damage was higher than the door or wiring was rated for.

You mean that the doors aren’t built to withstand being forced open so hard they bend metal (I had this but worse happen on an older car with a sudden wind gust of 50+mph that surprised me – I didn’t get it fixed because the damage was mostly cosmetic).

And that windshields aren’t stone proof? And fenders aren’t steel-toed boot kick proof? And the paint will be scratched if you put sharp and heavy objects…

If you look at the right hand Consumerist bar on this page, you should see a video clip of a NYC sanitation truck destroying an SUV. Should the SUV’s owner take it into the dealership and ask if they cover the damage?

I don’t think it’s a warranty issue, more of a ‘why would anyone buy such a piece of crap’ question.

During a blizzard, I opened the door of my ’66 Olds Toronado. The wind caught it and the car lurched forward about two feet. The only way I could get it closed was to restart the car and pull out enough to put the door on the leeward side (and then drive to a spot where I wouldn’t be getting out in that wind).

I realize “they don’t make them like that anymore,” but the difference between a door sturdy enough to push a 4500 lb. car over packed snow and a door that falls apart in a breeze shows just how bad Toyotas are.

I wouldn’t expect this to be covered under warranty. This is an accident – in his case, due to mother nature’s whims. I’ve actually had the same thing happen. While dropping a friend off in an almost wind-tunnel area of a windy river city on a very windy day (the gusts had to be at least 45 mph), my door was yanked forward so far that it actually dented the door and paneling, and deformed the hinges. I don’t know how this would be a defect due to manufacturing, etc. My solution was to go across the bridge to a mechanic, borrow some tools to take the door off its hinges so I could drive it home, and go buy a new set of hinges from the dealership. Easy, and not particularly expensive.

As most pointed out, this isn’t warranty unless the vehicle itself had manufacturing defects.

However, this isn’t even an insurance claim, since it’s not like a tree branch fell and broke the windshield. From an insurance standpoint, this is most likely negligence, pure and simple. Yeah, yeah, don’t blame the OP, but sudden gusts of wind normally occur on windy days. Was due caution exercised to make sure the wind didn’t catch the door? This seems analogous, carwise, to storing you oily rag pile and old newspaper collection next to your open-gate fireplace.

Why was this even posted on consumerist.com? Has consumerist.com become a bitch site when something does not go your way due to NO FAULT WHATSOEVER of the maker of the item broken? I can ‘kind of’ understand the op’s issue. It sounds like there is a ‘very slim’ possibility that the door checks were not quite strong enough to handle said ‘gust of wind’. But then just how strong of a gust are we talking about? At some point no matter how strong of a ‘gust of wind’ there was they are going to break. DUH! One thing the OP fails to mention at all is the day this occurred on, so that we might be able to check weather maps to find out just how ‘windy’ this day was. After all if he left the door open, he’s just pissed it was the wind and not some driver that he can sue to have their insurance company fix it so he’s not out any money. Sorry OP but you should have kept the door closed like I do. If I step away from the door I close it I could care less if It was 2 inches away, my hand leaves the door I close it. Why? because something like this can happen.

This is an insurance issue…not a warranty issue. Warranties are meant to cover failure under normal conditions. I gust of wind so strong that it blows the door open is not “normal” conditions. Call your insurance agent.

This article is misleading and Toyota is if no fault here. Call your insurance company. This is like experiencing paint chips on your hood as a result of rocks and insisting that the manufacturer cover the cost of reprinting. People like this is the reason why companies treat good honest people like crap.

“Have you ever had a natural occurrence break your car and deny you warranty coverage?”

Yes. That’s why people get comprehensive insurance coverage. A sheet of ice flew off the roof of the vehicle in front of me and crashed onto my car, shattering my windshield and denting my roof and hood. I called my insurance company because it has nothing to do with who made the car.

Let’s see… in a similar situation, a gust of wind blows your car off the road and you end up in a ditch. So you go to the manufacturer and say that because a gust of wind blows you off the road it’s a defect? Nope – not buying it.

Toyota recommends contacting your insurance company to file a claim to see if they will assist with any needed repair costs.

Yep. Typical body damage shuffle.

Toyota knows the new car owner carries insurance. So they passed the buck. Rightfully so if there is real structural damage from wind not related to an actual design defect..

Unfortunately this is common practice when a claim can be (legitimately) passed unto another party.

Now, if everybody in the country had a problem with car doors and the wind then maybe, just maybe Toyota would be on the hook for the problem.

BTW, some dealerships will go way beyond the norm when trying to help a customer. My dad had a Mazda minivan with a bad engine. Engine went bad right outside the normal warranty period. The prior year’s model had a recal on the engine, but his year’s model did not. Mazda thought they had solved the known problem with the engine Dealership fought with Mazda for days/weeks to get the engine covered….. (known defect with other model years, maybe it is the same issue with this other year model). Mazda finally sent an inspector. Agreed it MIGHT be the same defect. MAYBE. More discussion. Mazda finally paid for the new motor.

And the next motor.

Yep, the replacement motor died. No problem. It be covered. The van was crushed in the clunker program last year. Still had that 3rd motor. That motor worked fine.

In the minority here but, need to examine all sides and dig a little deeper into the issue. What is the wind gust velocity threshold limit Toyota uses to test the strength of open doors? And how strong was the wind gust? Could this be a design flaw?

Short of being in a tornado or hurricane, any car damaged by wind catching the door is defectively designed. This should be covered by the warranty. Cars should be designed to stand up to normal conditions.

I’d have to ask what amount of force the door could withstand. I haven’t looked for other complaints so I’m going to guess that it can withstand a moderate amount of force. e.g. If a 20mph gust of wind swung the door that last foot of the way open and caused the damage then I would blame it on the manufacturer. If a 30mph gust took the door its full travel then I’d be looking at insurance.